Kate Gosselin broke down in tears during a Today Show interview Monday while describing why she still wears her wedding ring. Struggling to maintain her composure and using a tissue to dab at her eyes, the Jon & Kate Plus 8 mom said she keeps the ring on to make the divorce transition easier for her children.

“Sorry,” she said as she started to cry. “I don’t want to upset them (the kids.) I don’t want to shock them.”

Kate was emotional during various points of the interview, but she tackled head on husband Jon‘s new romance, denied an affair with her bodyguard and attacked her brother who has criticized her publicly.

She was clearly upset but shed no tears as she addressed the subject of Jon dating Hailey Glassman, the 22-year-old daughter of the doctor who performed Kate’s tummy tuck.

Asked about the fact that Jon has admitted to starting the relationship in May, well before the reality show couple’s June 22 divorce announcement, Kate said, “I was shocked.” She added: “It’s very hurtful. To be very honest the most hurtful part is when his decisions directly affect the children.”

But she saved her harshest words for her brother Kevin Krieder and his wife Jodi, who have spoken out repeatedly, most recently on the CBS Early Show, saying they believe the Gosselin kids are being exploited. “That’s probably one of the most hurtful thing in all of this when family turns on you and makes up lies,” Kate said. “This has become a business for them where they travel and speak on live TV shows with their allegations. This is a brother who I was very, very close to who became jealous.”

In the wide-ranging interview Kate denied a long-rumored affair with her bodyguard Steve Neild. “There is no affair. There never has been an affair,” Kate said. “We are very good friends with him, his wife and family.”

In the two-segment interview she admitted, “I wake up and I feel a lot of failure. This is not what any mother sets out for her children.”

She said she still loves the Jon “that I knew” but made it fairly clear that those feelings don’t apply to Single Partying Jon, the man who has dated Hailey, ex Star reporter Kate Major and had a late night sleepover with the babysitter recently.

She responded to Jon’s assertion that she gave up on the marriage saying that wasn’t true and “clearly we both have completely different takes on what happened between us but I feel like the details of that for the sake of my kids need to remain private.”

Strangely she couldn’t “remember” when Jon moved out of the house and said he just began spending a lot of time away from home.